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1 – 10 of over 43000Caroline O. Ford, Bradley E. Lail and Velina Popova
Earnings management is a common term in the academic community and is likely understood by managers and professional investors, but how the large community of non-professional…
Abstract
Earnings management is a common term in the academic community and is likely understood by managers and professional investors, but how the large community of non-professional investors interprets this term is less clear. We examine non-professional investors’ attitudes toward earnings management and their resulting investing behaviors using a 2 × 2 mixed design. We manipulate investor role (prospective vs current) between participants and the method of earnings management within participants. We believe that different investment goals (prevention vs promotion) between current and prospective investors should lead to different investing behaviors. Consistent with our expectations, we find that current investors are more likely to maintain an equity than prospective investors are to invest in the same opportunity. Further, the consistent link between investors’ attitudes and actual investment behavior is only present for prospective investors. The prevention goal drives the current investors to maintain their investment, while the prospective investors remain more objective and focus on a goal of promotion. Importantly, prior research examining investor attitude toward earnings management has failed to link investors’ attitudes with actual investing decisions; our study attempts to fill this void by examining attitudes toward earnings management as well as subsequent investment behavior.
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Samra Chaudary, Sohail Zafar and Thomas Li-Ping Tang
Following behavioral finance and monetary wisdom, the authors theorize: Decision-makers (investors) adopt deep-rooted personal values (the love-of-money attitudes/avaricious…
Abstract
Purpose
Following behavioral finance and monetary wisdom, the authors theorize: Decision-makers (investors) adopt deep-rooted personal values (the love-of-money attitudes/avaricious financial aspirations) as a lens to frame critical concerns (short-term and long-term investment decisions) in the immediate-proximal (current income) and distal-omnibus (future inheritance) contexts to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity across context, people and time.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected data from 277 active equity traders (professional money managers and individual investors) in Pakistan’s two most robust investment hubs—Karachi and Lahore. The authors measured their love-of-money attitude (avaricious monetary aspirations), short-term and long-term investment decisions and demographic variables and collected data during Pakistan's bear markets (Pakistan Stock Exchange, PSX-100).
Findings
Investors’ love of money relates to short-term and long-term decisions. However, these relationships are significant for money managers but non-significant for individual investors. Further, investors’ current income moderates this relationship for short-term investment decisions but not long-term decisions. The intensity of the aspirations-to-short-term investment relationship is much higher for investors with low-income levels than those with average and high-income levels. Future inheritance moderates the relationships between aspirations and short-term and long-term decisions. Regardless of their love-of-money orientations, investors with future inheritance have higher magnitudes of short-term and long-term investments than those without future inheritance. The intensity of the aspirations-to-investments relationship is more potent for investors without future inheritance than those with inheritance. Investors with low avaricious monetary aspirations and without inheritance expectations show the lowest short-term and long-term investment decisions. Investors' current income and future inheritance moderate the relationships between their love of money attitude and short-term and long-term decisions differently in Pakistan's bear markets.
Practical implications
The authors help investors make financial decisions and help financial institutions, asset management companies, brokerage houses and investment banks identify marketing strategies and investor segmentation and provide individualized services.
Originality/value
Professional money managers have a stronger short-term orientation than individual investors. Lack of wealth (current income and future inheritance) motivates greedy investors to take more risks and become more vulnerable than non-greedy ones—investors’ financial resources and wealth matter. The Matthew Effect in investment decisions exists in Pakistan’s emerging economy.
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- Behavioural finance/economics/prospect theory/risk-taking/aversion
- Planned behaviour/TPB
- Values
- Love of money/money/greed/power/achievement/obsession/budget
- Current/income/future/inheritance/time/gender
- Short-term/Long-term/Decision-making
- Conservation/resource/wealth/possession/stress
- Bull/Bear/Market
- Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX-100)
The purpose of this paper is to propose a public policy solution to updating mainstream financial accounting from its nineteenth century roots and make it more relevant and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a public policy solution to updating mainstream financial accounting from its nineteenth century roots and make it more relevant and consistent with public policy, individual investor motivations and global needs as exemplified in the sustainability development goals. Many approaches to integrating social and environmental accounts with financial accounts are additive; the two types of accounting information sit alongside each other. The opportunity to revise the basic building block of financial accounting, information to help investors make economic decisions relating to investments to increase integration and recognition that this is a public policy decision and not an accounting profession decision, is rarely considered.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is a viewpoint on the opportunities for and benefits of integration of financial, social and environmental accounting.
Findings
The current basis of financial accounting does not reflect private investors’ motivations, and changing the basis of accounting is a public policy issue.
Research limitations/implications
This is a viewpoint paper. The pros and cons of current approaches to valuation of social and environmental outcomes are not explored.
Practical implications
Changing policy would require support from asset managers and owners, accounting bodies, civil society and politicians and would need a plan for transitioning from the existing approach.
Social implications
This is a possible starting point for formal research that could support policy changes that could result in resource allocation decisions taking account of social and environmental impacts.
Originality/value
There are several approaches for integrating social environmental and financial accounting; however, the proposal that integration would result from a change in public policy specifically clarifying and updating investor motivation provides a possible solution to many of the challenges of integration.
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Mohammed Bajaher, Murya Habbash and Adel Alborr
This paper aims to examine whether board governance mechanisms and ownership structure play a role in foreign investors’ decisions when buying shares in Saudi listed companies
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine whether board governance mechanisms and ownership structure play a role in foreign investors’ decisions when buying shares in Saudi listed companies
Design/methodology/approach
Foreign investment in the Saudi capital market started in 2015 and reached a peak in 2019, with corporate governance regulations having been updated in 2017. The authors tested the proposed relationships using hand collected data for all Saudi non-financial firms in 2019.
Findings
This study found that it does not play a role in attracting foreign investment in the Saudi capital market. Foreign investors also seem to avoid firms with concentrated ownership that either have high government or director ownership; however, accounting and market variables show significant impact on foreign investors' decisions. The outcomes of this study provide empirical evidence that current foreign investors in the Saudi stock market do not place enough merit on board governance and their investment decisions tend to depend on share performance. Thus, the results show that the current governance changes and capital market regulations in Saudi Arabia may not have been sufficient to stimulate the inflow of institutional foreign investment to the country to date, but rather they have attracted individual retail foreign investors.
Originality/value
This empirical study is one of only a small number of studies to investigate the impact of internal corporate governance on foreign ownership in developing countries and the first in the Saudi context. In fact, most previous governance research in Saudi Arabia focused on how board governance and ownership structure influences firm performance. A review of the prior studies found that only Badawi et al. (2019) examined the determinants of foreign ownership among Saudi listed firms. Thus, the present investigation extends that study by examining the role of board governance in attracting foreign investors.
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Russell Calk, Paul Haensly and Mary Jo Billiot
This study applies a model of systematic belief revision to examine the effect of the relation between current‐period unexpected earnings and prior‐period security returns on the…
Abstract
This study applies a model of systematic belief revision to examine the effect of the relation between current‐period unexpected earnings and prior‐period security returns on the current period relation between those unexpected earnings and returns. Cross‐sectional analysis blurs the effects of past information on current returns in a manner that makes it easy to overlook any dependence on historical patterns in this information. We show that the market responds to earnings innovations conditional on these patterns but does not respond in the manner predicted by the Hogarth and Einhorn (1992) belief adjustment model. Nonetheless, the results suggest that individual decision processes are detectable in capital markets data.
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This paper synthesizes existing experimental research in the area of investor perceptions and offers directions for future research. Investor-related experimental research has…
Abstract
This paper synthesizes existing experimental research in the area of investor perceptions and offers directions for future research. Investor-related experimental research has grown substantially, especially in the last decade, as it has made valuable contributions in establishing causal links, examining underlying process measures, and examining areas with little available data. Within this review, I examine 121 papers and identify three broad categories that affect investor perceptions: information format, investor features, and disclosure credibility. Information format describes how investors are influenced by information salience, information labeling, reporting and accounting complexity, financial statement recognition, explanatory disclosures, and proposed disclosure changes. Investor features describes investors’ use of heuristics, investor preferences, and the effect of investor experience. Disclosure credibility is influenced by external and internal assurance, management credibility, disclosure characteristics, and management incentives. Using this framework, I summarize the existing research and identify areas that would benefit from additional research.
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Andreas Charitou and Marios Panayides
The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the different market‐making systems found in most developed capital markets and to provide guidance to emerging market…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the different market‐making systems found in most developed capital markets and to provide guidance to emerging market regulators for a possible implementation of such a system.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper looks closely at the market design of seven developed countries focusing on the obligations and privileges of market makers. Through a case study and empirical evidence the paper identifies advantage and disadvantage of a possible implementation of a similar design to an emerging market.
Findings
The paper identifies three forms of market making applied today: the quote‐driven, the centralized and non‐centralized systems. Four factors are proposed that regulatory authorities in emerging markets should consider when deciding whether, and which of, the three market‐making systems they should implement. These are: current exchange design and the costs of restructuring, international and domestic investors' sentiment towards the exchange, size of the emerging market and the market designs in countries hosting the target foreign capital.
Research limitations/implications
The paper looks at the implementation of a market‐making system in an emerging market. Further research may investigate other ways of how emerging markets authorities can restructure their markets into more efficient, compatible and trustworthy financial venues in order to attract both domestic and foreign investors.
Originality/value
The area of emerging markets' microstructure design and market quality is still relatively under‐studied. We provide evidence of the challenges and benefits of the implementation of a market‐making system in those markets.
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Nargis Makhaiel and Michael Sherer
Previous literature on earnings management (EM) indicates that managers are motivated to adjust reported income to serve their own self-interests, and to try and influence capital…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous literature on earnings management (EM) indicates that managers are motivated to adjust reported income to serve their own self-interests, and to try and influence capital markets. However, previous research has failed to provide an appropriate theoretical underpinning for EM and has ignored the effect of cultural and environmental factors on shaping managers’ motivations. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to draw on interpretive methodology and new institutional sociology (NIS) theory to identify the external factors that motivate managers of Egyptian companies to use EM to modify financial statements.
Design/methodology/approach
The research adopted an interpretative methodology and interview methods. Interviewees were conducted with 34 participants, who were divided into four different categories; executives, financial analysts, auditors and stock exchanges’ authorities.
Findings
This paper provides empirical evidence on the range of external factors that motivate Egyptian corporate executives to adjust the earnings number in financial statements. These external factors include the expectations of investors, lenders and employees, the impact of stock exchange listing rules, beating an earnings target, and the privatisation of key state-owned companies.
Research limitations/implications
The authors recognise that the paper has a number of limitations. The research is concerned solely with EM in Egypt and, therefore, it would not be safe to generalise the results to other contexts, even in the Middle East. Further research on the behaviour of managers towards EM in other countries would be useful to test validity of the results reported in this paper.
Originality/value
The principal contribution of this paper is to build on the previous EM literature to include external factors within the Egyptian context which motivate Egyptian managers to manage the earnings of companies in an upward direction. It adds additional EM motives to available literature including: employees, stock exchange’s rules, privatisation and meeting industrial norms. Also, the paper provides evidence of the effect of concentrated share ownership on managers’ likelihood to engage in EM behaviour. The paper also extends NIS theory to recognise the importance of the interplay between institutional and economic environment by including economic reform, and non-financial providers as factors that can explain the EM behaviour.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of audit quality, measured by financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms, on the investors' ability to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of audit quality, measured by financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms, on the investors' ability to predict future earnings for profitable and unprofitable firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the returns‐earnings regression model and interacts all independent variables in this model with a dummy variable, AUDIT, which is set to equal one if financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms, zero otherwise. Future earnings response coefficient is the measure of earnings predictability.
Findings
The paper finds that investors are able to better anticipate future earnings when financial statements are audited by the big four accounting firms. However, the findings are not applicable for unprofitable firms.
Practical implications
The findings of the paper have implications for auditing related academic research and the users of financial statements. In particular, the study shows that the big four accounting firms have not lost their audit quality advantage and that financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms are arguably of higher quality than those audited by non‐big four accounting firms.
Originality/value
It is believed that there is no UK study to date examining the association of the quality of financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms and the returns‐earnings association. Consequently, this paper significantly contributes to the limited literature on the perceived value relevance of audit quality.
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